By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune

In a letter filled with citations of peer-reviewed scientific studies, 32 scientists — including many working on the state’s coastal restoration efforts — told Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal that there’s a direct link between the rising sea levels eroding the state’s coastline and greenhouse gases produced by the state’s industries.

“We believe that the scientific evidence is compelling that sea level is highly likely to rise at faster rates than in the recent past and that this poses severe threats to Louisiana’s people, land and coastal ecosystems,” said the letter signed by 32 scientists, including 27 from Louisiana universities. “We also believe that substantial scientific evidence shows that healthy coastal wetlands are a necessary ingredient for a sustainable system able to respond to sea-level rise, and are thus a critical part of effective flood and storm protection.

Donald Boesch is a former director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie.

“The amount of sea-level rise that will be experienced depends on the future trajectory of societal greenhouse gas emissions,” the letter said. “These emissions are increasing atmospheric and oceanic temperatures, which are leading to concerns about stronger hurricanes, a key vulnerability for Louisiana. It is therefore imperative that these factors be included in the development of policies on coastal protection and restoration, and that such integrated policies be strategically planned and urgently implemented.”

The letter points out that Louisiana’s coastline is experiencing one of the highest rates of relative sea level rise – the combination of rising seas caused by warming and melting ice and local land subsidence – in the world. At Grand Isle, water levels are rising an average of just over a third of an inch a year, based on measurements from 1947 to 2006.

“This is equivalent to a rise of three feet in 100 years, even before additional sea-level rise is factored in,” the letter said. 

The letter was prompted by concerns about the state’s lack of action on global warming raised by a number of scientists involved in the state’s coastal restoration program, said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center For Environmental Science and former director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie. 

“There was a lot of discussion that somehow the state was still in denial about the real threats they’re dealing with in respect to climate change, and sea-level rise in particular,” Boesch said. 

While documents supporting restoration projects prepared by both the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration and the Army Corps of Engineers mention-sea level rise, Boesch said, “it was really not taken as seriously as it should be.”

And while the scientists agreed to avoid casting their letter as a response to a flurry of letters from Jindal and other Louisiana officials attacking a recent federal decision to recognize greenhouse gases as a threat to humans, Boesch and others made clear that they personally object to those letters.

By George Altman @ AL.com

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Coastal Alabama homeowners who suspect that insurance companies are charging them more than upstate residents for coverage unrelated to hurricanes could find out for sure under a proposal in the Legislature.

The bill, filed by Sen. Ben Brooks, R-Mobile, would require insurers to include a breakdown of coverage costs in renewal paperwork sent to Alabama policyholders every year. 

The disclosure would show how much of a person’s premium goes to wind, fire, theft and other types of coverage. 

Brooks said he wrote the bill to address concerns expressed by residents of Mobile and Baldwin counties — and confirmed by the Alabama Department of Insurance — that the coastal counties were being asked to pay more than the rest of the state for non-wind coverage.

“This doesn’t cost the insurance companies anything. This doesn’t change their rates,” he said. “All this is, is a way for the average citizen, the layperson, to check his rates against others in the state.” 

Spokesmen for Alfa Mutual Insurance, Allstate Corp. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., Alabama’s three largest insurers, all said they hadn’t had enough time to study the measure and couldn’t comment on it. 

Still, State Farm’s David Majors said his company should be able to isolate the costs associated with wind coverage, since it already does so for some policies. 

“State Farm knows the amount of wind coverage on a policy in Mobile and Baldwin County because when we remove wind coverage, we know the amount to reduce the policy by,” Majors said. 

Since Hurricane Ivan struck in 2004, the availability of private insurance along Alabama’s coast has steadily shrunk, while costs for wind coverage have skyrocketed. 

But beyond paying more to cover the high winds that a hurricane might bring, policyholders in Mobile and Baldwin have seen higher costs for other types of insurance, state Insurance Commissioner Jim Ridling told the Press-Register in an April 2009 article. Ridling said there was no clear evidence that fire or theft losses were higher in the coastal counties than the rest of the state. 

By Deborah Barfield Berry, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson)

WASHINGTON – It would only be “fair” for the federal government to conduct a special census in the Gulf Coast to count displaced residents who return to the region after the 2010 census, according to the head of the Census Bureau.

The question is: Who would pay for it?

“The fair thing to do for the country is to do another count of that area later on,” Robert Groves said in an interview. He said Gulf Coast communities are still working to help residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed to return.

“They’re rebuilding. They want more people there. People are coming back.”

Census officials, local governments and community groups have raised concerns that the 2010 census count won’t include all Gulf Coast residents, particularly those who haven’t yet returned after the 2005 hurricanes. Every 10 years, the Census Bureau conducts a constitutionally-required count of residents living in the United States. Residents must be counted where they live on April 1, so displaced Gulf Coast residents will be counted wherever they are living on that day.

Much is at stake for Gulf Coast communities. Census data are used to distribute $400 billion in federal funds and determine the number of seats each state gets in the House of Representatives.

Community activists in the Gulf Coast and national civil rights groups are calling for a special census.

“If they haven’t made it home by now, they won’t be able to take advantage of their recovery dollars,” said Trupania Bonner, executive director of Moving Forward Gulf Coast, a community group helping residents in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Groves said the agency has conducted more than 300 special censuses since the last major count in 2000. Many were for communities that had population growth or annexations and were looking for more federal funding, said Pat Paytas, a program analyst at the Census Bureau.

Groves said the bureau could return to the Gulf Coast for a special census if local governments or the state request a count.

But the cost of a special census must be reimbursed and it is unknown whether state or local governments in the Gulf Coast would be willing and able to pay for it.

“If the Census Bureau can get behind doing an interim count of the Gulf Coast region between the 2010 and 2020 census, then that would be a terrific way to be able to gauge how the region is growing,” said Audrey Singer, a census expert at the Brookings Institution. “However, the cost and the politics of doing such a count may prevent it from happening.”

Groves said he doesn’t know how much a special census for the Gulf Coast would cost.

“I’m not saying it’s cheap, but somehow other areas have gotten the political will to assemble the money,” Groves said. “It is a matter of will.”

Groves said the governments could seek federal or private funding.

Marc Morial, chairman of the Census Bureau’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee and president of the National Urban League, said Congress could include the cost of the special census in the 2011 budget.

But congressional lawmakers, including Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the Census Bureau, have raised concerns about the cost.

Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, said the count is important to help communities get federal funds to rebuild. “It’s something they should do quickly – 2011 at the latest,” he said.

But Paytas said the earliest there could be a special count would be 2012.

The Census Bureau is aware of the challenges of doing the 2010 count in Gulf Coast states and is planning to take steps to address the concerns, including going door-to-door in some parts of the region to make sure hundreds of thousands of residents get questionnaires.

• By AMY WOLD at Advocate staff writer

A federal task force Monday released recommendations on how federal, state and local authorities can better work together for ocean and coastal planning.

The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force released the draft “Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning” report and started the public comment period, which ends Feb. 12. The report is available at http://whitehouse.gov/oceans.

Among the recommendations are the following:

• Fostering better communication, coordination and cooperation among agencies.
• Getting the public more involved in the planning process.
• Establishing a database where information can be shared.

The task force was formed by President Barack Obama in June and given the job of producing two reports — one about developing a national ocean, coastal and Great Lakes policy and another to come up with recommendations on ecosystem planning.

The policy recommendation report was released in September, said Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the task force and of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The planning framework report released Monday lays out how regional planning across the country would be set up to gather science, data and planning information.

Sutley said regional planning would be a multiyear process to look at how to better manage the uses and ecosystem health of oceans and coasts and make them more sustainable. These regional plans would be completed by 2015, she said.

The process is not expected to create an added layer of bureaucracy, but instead it’s expected to create more efficient ways to work in coastal areas, said Laura Davis, associate deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior.

“We think it’s going to build on what we do today,” she said. “In fact, we don’t think there will be negative impacts on Department of the Interior responsible areas, including oil and gas.”

The report is the result of 38 roundtable discussions with interested parties and six regional public meetings — one of which was held Oct. 19 in New Orleans.

Paul Sandifer, senior science adviser to the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said thousands of public comments went into developing this draft.

“I encourage people across the country to read it and send in their comments,” he said.

The Associated Press

BILOXI, Miss. — Educators are hopeful that $1.5 million in additional FEMA funds will be available to restore the administration building destroyed by Katrina on the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Park Campus.

USM is one of five public entities in Mississippi that have chosen arbitration, established by federal rules in August, to resolve disputes over FEMA funding for Katrina recovery.

Also taking cases to arbitration are the Port of Gulfport, the Bay-Waveland and Moss Point School Districts and Forrest County.

The Sun Herald reports Thursday that arbitration appears to have worked well for USM. FEMA initially provided $950,000 for repairs to the administration building, concluding it was less than 50 percent damaged. USM gathered and submitted additional information to show the building was more than 50 percent damaged and would cost $2.5 million to restore.